ld not have disgraced a statue of Venus, and
laughed and chatted away as she washed the feathers. Now, John Niel was
not a susceptible man: he had gone through the fire years before and
burnt his fingers like many another confiding youngster but, all the
same, he did wonder as he knelt there and watched this fair girl, who
somehow reminded him of a rich rosebud bursting into bloom, how long
it would be possible to live in the same house with her without falling
under the spell of her charm and beauty. Then he began to think of Jess,
and of what a strange contrast the two were.

"Where is your sister?" he asked presently.

"Jess? Oh, I think that she has gone to the Lion Kloof, reading or
sketching, I don't know which. You see in this establishment I represent
labour and Jess represents intellect," and she nodded her head prettily
at him, and added, "There is a mistake somewhere, she got all the
brains."

"Ah," said John quietly, and looking up at her, "I don't think that you
are entitled to complain of the way in which Nature has treated you."

She blushed a little, more at the tone of his voice than the words, and
went on hastily, "Jess is the dearest, best, and cleverest woman in the
whole world--there. I believe that she has only one fault, and it is
that she thinks too much about me. Uncle said that he had told you how
we came here first when I was eight years old. Well, I remember that
when we lost our way on the veldt that night, and it rained so and was
so cold, Jess took off her own shawl and wrapped it round me over my
own. Well, it has been just like that with her always. I am always to
have the shawl--everything is to give way to me. But there, that is Jess
all over; she is very cold, cold as a stone I sometimes think, but when
she does care for anybody it is enough to frighten one. I don't know a
great number of women, but somehow I do not think that there can be many
in the world like Jess. She is too good for this place; she ought to go
away to England and write books and become a famous woman, only----"
she added reflectively, "I am afraid that Jess's books would all be sad
ones."

Just then Bessie stopped talking and suddenly changed colour, the bunch
of lank wet feathers she held in her hand dropping from it with a little
splash back into the bath. Following her glance, John looked down the
avenue of blue-gum trees and perceived a big man with a broad hat and
mounted on a splendid black horse, cant